Parceiros

I have been interested on cars for very long time. I guess since I was born! Actually at those years, I was not able to compare the details, I was only able to identify them by their look. When you are small, design is the best bit and you don’t care about the rest.

As the years have passed, I have driven many different cars and I started to remember their every bit. Especially, interior details. There were some very impressive and there were some very pathetic.

Recently I was looking at my fashion blogger Nelly’s posts and I noticed something interesting! Nelly is a Greek fashion blogger and she has a very creative blog :) (She has more followers than me!) on her blog I noticed a part of a car in her photos but I could not identify it! There was a navigation screen, and this means it might be a premium brand but the air condition knob destroyed the “premium” word. That air condition knob might be from a Nissan or a Renault (They are the same thing now) or something like Kia, may be Toyota or Peugeot, Citroën. But I am hundred percentage sure that, it is not from a German car! I saw that knob in somewhere and it was not built very well. I can remember this very well. Despite my all efforts, I could not manage to find out the brand of this car.

My CSI: Auto ability was not able to solve the case! It might be Nissan Qashqai and also I suspected VW Golf or Passat (The previous models), because they have a very bad built air condition knob but navigation screen changes the pictures!

Comment from Nelly; that’s a Jeep (She means that’s an SUV) or it can be Hyundai :) If you have any idea, please feel free to write on comment :)

Anyway, if you are wondering about the boots they are from Zara :) And you read the rest of the story from the link below.

For Monday, I had totally something different to write but I found something rather more interesting!

I found an eBay auction for “Guide to being in Audience if you get Top Gear Tickets”. This auction does not sell or give free tickets, it is just giving your logistical and tactical knowledge if you planning to boost your ego during the TopGear shooting!

Hopefully, this interesting service is only for £2 (€2.3, $4). As mentioned in bidding, it will be only three A4 papers providing the very important knowledge on these topics listed below. And hopefully the %50 of the auction will be given to Ellen MacArthur Trust.

Here is the fourth short movie from BMW! This time BMW made the movie based on motorcycle. Actually I was reluctant to add this video or not. But I wanted to add something different for once.

The movie took place in Antalya which is located south of Turkey. As you can see from the movie, Tiffany Coastes went around the world with a BMW motorcycle. But not with a BMW SUV !!! What we learn from this movie; if you are planning to go around the world, don’t prefer BMW X5. It may not wish to go around the world as you wish :)

I can say one thing about these movies, they definitely strength the bond between the brand and consumers. Even though you have no idea about cars, you will have sympathy towards BMW! Well Done! I don't know which PR agency did this job, but they did it great.

I don't know why but the last movie does not appear on BMW's YouTube channel.

Audi is not my favourite but I cannot deny the fact that they are producing state of the art vehicles. Unfortunately these state of the art vehicles have different fates! Some of them end up in a luxury garage and be loved by it owner or driven as corporate car or worse driven as a rented car.

However this is totally something else, this owner made the uncool Audi A3 as the coolest car of the year. I am proud to announce the 2011's coolest car of the car, water frozen Audi A3.

As I read from WorldCarFans website, the owner parked his car as usual but the water pipes did not act as usual, so they broke down and freezing winds of Manhattan created this sculpture.

Actually this is a very unfortunate situation but the owner tried to separate ice and Audi A3 by sledge hammer and this is more unfortunate. All right I don't like A3 and I consider as a luxury VW Golf but sludge hammer is too tough for it :)

I was planning to write something else for today but my blogger friend Sila sent me something which I could not avoid it :) Actually this is the most remarkable thing about a car :)

It was about Volvo and its lunatic level of brand extensions strategy. Sila is a fashion blogger and she has nothing to do with cars except driving them! As you can imagine the situation is so serious.

Volvo's new "eye-catching" model S60 packed with attitude and driving pleasure (I don't know how you pack a car with attitude and driving pleasure) is offering nail polishes. You didn't read wrong, Volvo S60 has nail polishes as a brand extension strategy and it can be bought from Volvo's merchandise store.

It offers three differently pleasuring colours! 612 R-Design Red, 481 Cosmic White, 704 Vibrant Copper, 487 Ember Black. And they are being offered by a very reasonable price of €18 (£15) but the red is cheaper €10 (£8)!

I don’t have any knowledge on nail polish colour codes but as far as I understood these codes are the Volvo S60's colour codes. And from the press release I can understand that, when you buy a Volvo S60 with these colours you are supposed to buy the same colour nail polish!

"Volvo is probably the first car maker in the world to market nail polish. We wanted to do something a bit different, with a touch of humour and a little unexpected twist for the launch of the new car, while at the same time offering our female target group an unusual product," says Yvonne Hall Tobiasson, Merchandise & Licensing manager at Volvo Cars' Global Marketing department

From this point of view, I can clearly say one thing. Volvo S60 is the best female car of the century :)

By offering nail polish a part of brand extension strategy, Volvo ticked the female section in S60's gender section and definitely avoided many male customers. I really wonder the male "potential" customers’ interpretation of these products :) When you check their website for S60, it is full of testosterone hormone :)

And from old days, Volvo S60 had a very impressive show to press and with these colours we can polish it better :)

I never like to write about local topics in my blog, I would like to write thing which can be catch the interest of whole internet users. In other terms; think global, speak global! (I made this now) For that reason, I never discuss on very local issues but this time I would like to do it :)

I think most of my readers don’t know anything about my identity or who I am. This provided opportunity to be anonymous :) However it is not very hard to guess it from my name and from my Twitter account. So, you know where I am from. Turkey. And I would like to talk about Istanbul and Range Rove Evoque. No, I did not drive the Evoque in Istanbul :)

Now there is an exquisite campaign is going on with Range Rover Evoque. (Land Rover’s new small and luxury SUV vehicle which is placed under the Range Rover brand.) You can find many articles about Evoque in my blog, because I really love the vehicle. And this great SUV has a very eye-catching website called HelloEvoque.Com. This website linked to Pulse of the City mobile application and your routes are being uploaded to this website.

When this campaign first started, there were only couple of cities and I mentioned on my blog to add other cities such as Istanbul. I am not saying Istanbul because I am from Turkey, I am saying Istanbul because it is one of the unique cities on earth and it should be a part of the campaign. I don’t know whether the PR agency read my blog and changed their decision but now you can see the Istanbul as well!

However there is question mark on website. In other cities you can see various people who are involved with arts, music, acting or in journalism and they talk about their journey with Range Rover Evoque on that city! Hopefully the agency picked up really respectful people and avoided “popular culture” celebrities. Range Rover’s brand identity matches with the people. And it is good to avoid popular culture’s celebrities! You can see those people on everywhere, they are too much popular for their short popularity time-frame and it becomes unfortunate to see a good product with too much popular culture.

Since now Land Rover PR Team chosen very good profile and I do hope that they will do the same with Istanbul also. I do not wish to see some Turkish pop star celebrities or models or some people who may overlap with the Range Rover’s brand identity. I am sure that the Land Rover’s Turkish distributor Borusan Automotive’s PR firm will not a mistake like this.

Last week’s biggest thing was the Ferrari FF. The four-wheel drive, Ferrari! That’s true, Ferrari also involved with four-wheel drive fashion and they made a four-wheel drive Ferrari. This car is planned to be a replacement for Ferrari 612 (four seater) model.

This new all-terrain Ferrari has V12 engine which has 660 Italian horses inside :) And offers Ruote Motrici which is four-wheel drive system branded by Ferrari. And also it has carbon ceramic brakes, magnetic dampers and other common Ferrari things.

However this model offers something really interesting! Huge boot! This boot is so big, Ferrari FF can be offered as a commercial vehicle also. 450lt of empty space in a Ferrari and with rear seats down it is 800lt. I would like concentrate on two thing “rear seats down” and “Ferrari”. I have nothing to say, really nothing to comment on this. Ferrari’s customers feedback to Maranello, give us more space for boot! And my answer, go to a Mercedes dealer and order an E63 AMG Estate! For people who have no idea about boot space and sports car, I can give one explanation. Expecting a boot space in a Ferrari is like expecting to use Agent Provocateur underwear for gym! The same mentality.

Actually things are getting nastier with the design. This odd looking Ferrari reminded me one thing from the past. BMW Z3 Coupe! A car accidently designed to be a sports car. They really look the same. A weird coupe estate sport car! Do the judgement by yourself :)

I really don’t know what to say about Aston Martin Cygnet. A pointless car or a huge marketing achievement. Today Aston Martin announced the price of Cygnet (Aston Martin’s city car based on Toyota iQ) and it is priced at £ 40 000 (€ 47 000 / $ 63 000). This price tag to a car which is based on a Toyota is a real question mark!

In terms of marketing; Aston Martin did a piece of art vehicle. Exterior and interior design of Cygnet is a great interpretation of Aston Martin design concept. You can see the each detail of Aston Martin identity on Cygnet. The air holes on bonnet, the front look, the precision in interior design and high quality interior. Honestly Cygnet’s interior is one of the best interiors on market. You can buy this car just for its interior design. Unfortunately there are some buttons transferred from Toyota too! This was unavoidable, overall it is a real piece of art Toyota.

The pricing is very well designed like the interior. £40 000 is a good price to prevent people who cannot afford to buy a descent Aston Martin and end up in Cygnet! This is serious problem for brand extension. You just introduce a new lower segment car and new customers adore it but your royal customers run away.

High price means one thing, this car is not for you! If you are planning to buy an Audi A3 and you just waited for Cygnet for your new car, you made a mistake. Cygnet is not an alternative for A3 or Golf or Focus consumers. £40 000 means, this car should be bought by people who already have an Aston Martin or Bentley or Ferrari or Rolls Royce or anything which does not fit to narrow city roads. People who do not wish to destroy their style by small city cars are the target group. And there are lots of people like this! However I know that many people will save money to own an Aston Martin and they will buy one Cygnet, and they will say I have an Aston Martin.

Let’s see the real picture. Cygnet is based on Toyota iQ and expect the design, the rest is the same. Engine, transmission, exhaust, suspension and this list goes on! Unfortunately iQ is not a luxury vehicle and does not offer something special. Aston Martin did their best to redefine the iQ but this is the limit.

For £40 000, you will get a 1,3lt Toyota engine which is the same engine in iQ, there is nothing changed. Two gearboxes, a manual and an automatic. The automatic is an automated manual transmission, which means it will be terrible. The suspension remained the, the rear suspension is a torsion bar. And this means, there is no proper suspension on rear wheels. The pot holes can be felt by your whole body. This technology is cheaper than a descent suspension and mostly present in budget cars (Renault Clio, Peugeot 206, Toyota Auris). This means the traditional Aston Martin comfort may not be present in Cygnet also.

And lastly, you can buy a descent second hand DB9 for £40 000 and it would be a proper car. I know the main target group of Cygnet is the customers who already have an Aston Martin and don’t like second hand car.

In my opinion, we can see a very interesting target group for this car. A totally unexpected customer group may end up in dealer. This happened with Tata Nano, a cheap car for poor people and rich people in India bought Nano for daily driving. Cygnet will be a Kinder Surprise for everyone.

Why Aston Martin did this crazy thing? Because, they have to reduce their CO2 levels upcoming EU regulations. Unfortunately Aston Martin is a lonely brand unlike others. Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche are sub brands of Volkswagen, Ferrari is a sub brand of Fiat, Mercedes and BMW have low emission vehicles. So except, Aston Martin everyone can reduce their overall CO2 level to satisfy future EU regulation. For Aston Martin, offering a car based on iQ was the best option.

Honestly if I have chance, I might buy a Cygnet. I really like small city cars with nice interior and high quality interior.

Recenty if you went around the shopping malls, you might have noticed the sales in everywhere. This is really normal at these days, fashion brands are trying to clear their stocks for new season.

Unfortunately this does not happen in automotive industry, they don't go on sale after New Year’s Eve. But they do make sales, in a silent way!

In couple of months some new season cars will appear in automotive industry and if you are lucky, you can have the current models with a good price!

I am talking about Mercedes C-Class and Audi A6. These two German cars are going to have new models. But with a difference. Mercedes C-Class will be face lifted and Audi A6 will be replaced by a new model

Mercedes C-Class is going to have a face lift, this means there will be minor and major changes on car. New transmission, new engines, better interior but the exterior shape will not change that much. Therefore, current C-Class is going to be the pre-face lifted model and this means you have chance to bargain if there are extra vehicles exists in dealers :) I know that this car will be the old one but you might have a very good price to compensate your depression on the pre-historic five speed auto and plastic based interior. In the end, it is Mercedes and cheap, don't focus on details :)

The other one is the Audi A6. Honestly that's a really good car with nice technology and nice manufacturing but I have never liked it, this is another case. But at the moment, this is my favourite car, because there will be a new model coming up and you can have a great bargain opportunity to own an Audi. Don't be bothered on front wheel drive and weird CVT transmission. It is big, safe, better built than VW and made in Germany. If dealer gives you a good price, forget the rest :)

Both of these cars are not my favourite but with a nice bargain, they can be my favourite :) So start running to dealers! If you wish to pay more and buy the new one, that's you decision.

Recently Mini released their best looking vehicle, Paceman. Actually it is a concept vehicle not yet in production but I can say one thing about it; the best looking Mini. I have never liked any Minis. They are not bad cars but I never liked their design, therefore they were not in my area of interest. However this new vehicle looks totally different. It is a descent coupe and looks really beautiful!

Mini calls this vehicle Sport Activity Coupe (SAC) which is three door version of Countryman. Don’t be fooled by the new definition. It shares the same platform with Countryman and offers four wheel drive, so that’s three door version of Countryman.

Unfortunately this Paceman will cause a serious trouble for consumers. Many consumers are not interested on cars that much and they first look at the design. So, Paceman will be compared with normal Mini models. In other words, Mini created a competitor for its own model range! Consumers will try to understand why to prefer Paceman instead of traditional one and marketing team will say many things which do not mean anything. On the other hand, Paceman will bring new customers to Mini, people like me who don’t like the current range but find Paceman is a really well designed car. But I don’t know how many people are thinking like me.

Again in terms of design; Mini Paceman is an adaption of BMW X6 for Mini! Nothing really special. They are both coupe styled vehicles and offer four wheel drive. Of course, Paceman offers three doors and optional four wheel drive but the design concept shares common identity. Therefore, I am predicting a different customer range for this vehicle.

Whatever Mini says SAC or anything else, it will be a competitor for Range Rover Evoque. But they satisfy totally different needs!